Daily updates about Syria

4/9/2014

Sources from the FSA reported that collaborative sources within the Syrian government leaked them evidence that Assad met with security leaders to discuss a plan to use chemical weapons in order to stop rebel advances in eastern Ghouta. The decision was to coordinate the plan with Iranian military experts.

Al-Jadid reported that 1,500 members of the Armenian military have been deployed to the eastern coast of Syria, as well as local Armenians who have volunteered and including 300 men from the Deer Hunter’s Brigade, an elite unit within the Armenian military.

The Syrian military began a ground offensive on Rankousas part of their offensive in Qalamoun.

–They have been shelling the town for several days and reportedly took a hilltop position near the town.

SANA reported that 25 people were killed and 107 wounded by 2 car bombs in the Karam al-Luz district of Homs.

Rebel-held areas of Aleppo received UN aid for the first time in 10 months.

The ISIL claimed to have killed 30 people in a suicide bombing with a ton carrying 3 tons of explosives in Aleppo province, and 60 Kurds in a separate suicide attack in al-Qahtaneh in Hasakeh Province.

The ISIS clashed with members of the al-Bureij clan in Raqqa when they tried to arrest a woman for not wearing a veil in public.

Rebels said that they had launched the l’tassam campaign to seize 5 military instillations in southwestern Aleppo.

They claimed to have cut off regime supply road between al-Ramusa and the al-Assad Military Academy, two of the five military installations, after they made progress in the southern suburb of Aqrab.

–They claimed to have killed 38 government troops and captured 5, and destroyed two tanks.

SANA said that 11 civilians were killed and 50 injured in mortar shelling on the southern Aleppo neighborhood of al-Hamdaniyeh and on Sa’ad Allah al-Jaberi Square, directly between Aqrab and the Military Academy.

SANA said that North of the military academy in al-Rashideen, the military had killed scores of rebels.

Navi Pillay, the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights, has said that rights violations by regime forces “far outweigh” those by insurgents.